Andersonville Raiders
The Andersonville Raiders were a band of rogue soldiers held prisoner at the Confederate Andersonville Prison during the American Civil War. Led by their chieftains Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn, these soldiers terrorized their fellow prisoners, robbing and sometimes even murdering them. An internal police force of other soldiers, called the "regulators," eventually formed to counter the raiders and brought them to trial. On July 11, 1864, six of the leading raiders were hanged, ending their control of the prison. Prison conditions Andersonville prison was one of the worst prison camps in the U.S. Civil War. It is particularly known for the harsh conditions of the camp. The prisoners suffered from a large amount of burdens caused by the overcrowding. Guards were often sadistic in nature and would kill without mercy, regardless of whether or not the prisoners were breaking camp rules or crossing over the dead line. Starvation was a common cause of death throughout the camp, and many men would fall victim of it. When the captives had the chance to eat, they often would suffer from diseases caused by the contaminated food and water. Dysentery, scurvy, and gangrene ran wild through the camp as a result of the poor quality of food and the harsh conditions of the camp. The harsh conditions the Union prisoners faced from the guards, disease, and lack of food were not the only problems they faced. Among the horrible conditions there was also a group of Union soldiers in the camp that terrorized the other captives by stealing their goods and murdering prison mates in order to get what they wanted. This group of soldiers was more commonly known as the Andersonville Raiders. Andersonville prison was established in February 1864 in the small town of Andersonville, Georgia. There was a breakdown in the prisoner of war exchange in 1863, which resulted in a surplus of prisoners of war. As a result of this, there was overcrowding in southern prisoner-of-war camps across the north part of the south, particularly in the Richmond camps. In order to deal with this, the Confederate government had to establish a large prison somewhere in the South that could handle a huge population of inmates (Futch, pp 1–6). They eventually choose the strategic location of Andersonville, Georgia because of its small location and the close proximity of fresh water and railroads (Futch, pp 1–6). The camp was about and was later expanded to . It was surrounded by a 15-foot (4.6 m) high stockade that wrapped around the entire camp. Every 30 yards there were large guard towers that were known as pigeon roosts. The worst and most feared part of the camp was the dead line. The dead line was a much smaller fence that was about from the stockade. If a person crossed over this fence, one of the guards would shoot them (Davis, p 1-12). The camp was not built for quality but rather built for the prevention of escape. There were no wooden barracks built, and therefore prisoners had to live in self built tents (Davis p 1-17). At its height, the camp was home to over 30,000 Union inmates in August 1864 (Davis, p 24). Organization and methods Among the many issues the soldiers were facing, they had to deal with a group of rogue soldiers who terrorized the camp and were more commonly known through out the camp as “the raiders.” The raiders were known throughout the camp for their harsh tactics and undoubted lack of mercy for their victims. According to John McElroy, the raiders used various methods to get what they wanted that ranged from “sneak thievery to highway robbery,” (McElroy, p 74). One of their main tactics in stealing goods and food was to lookout for “promising subjects” in the crowds of new prisoners and trick them by pretending to help them find a good sleeping place and then beat them and steal their goods (McElroy, pp 73–74). This was one of the most common ways they would steal from a person. Another technique would be to send out teams of spies that would track down prisoners that they suspected of having some sort of valuable that could be traded to the guards. When they knew for sure this person had something they could steal, they would then wait for him to sleep and raid his tent, and if he were to wake they would threaten him with death if he tried to resist (Futch, p 65). The raiders were well organized and had many members that carried out a number of deeds for them. They were centrally organized around the six most important members of the group known as the “chieftains.” The six chieftains were Charles Curtis, John Sarsfield, Patrick Delaney, Teri Sullivan (or WR Rickson according to other sources), William Collins, and A. Munn (Futch, p 64-65). According to Futch, each of the leaders had henchmen who were organized under groups named after the leaders such as “Collins’ Raiders” and “Curtis’s Raiders”, (Futch, p 64). The raiders were well stocked and had many members, of which estimates range from 50 to even as high as 500 according to some. The best estimate is that they had at least 100 raiders plus many others that either did favors for them or would help them out in some way in exchange for something (Futch, p 68). With the help of their widespread thievery, they were well stocked with weapons that ranged from axes to bowie knives. They were also well fed which gave them a great advantage when it came to fighting because their opponents were often suffering from malnutrition and therefore considerably weaker than the raiders they were trying to defend themselves against. Also, as result of their thievery, they were able to build a tent that was large enough to fit upwards to one hundred men and was made up of mostly stolen materials (Futch, pp 65–68). When the raiders stole from a person it put that person at risk of dying as an indirect or direct result of the robbery. In Warren Goss’s autobiography of his time spent at Andersonville he describes the indirect effect as the raiders “Stealing blankets from boys unaccustomed to hardships was downright murder,” because the person who got their blanket stolen was then exposed to the “chill dews of evening and the frequent rains… and was sure to sicken and die,” (Goss, p 150). The direct cause was when a person resisted being robbed and was murdered in the process. One example of this is “one poor fellow came to an untimely death at their hands… because he showed resistance to their inhuman attempts,” (Kellogg, pp 91–92). It was not uncommon for a newcomer to the prison to be awoken in the middle of the night with a knife to their throat and have someone threaten to cut their throat if they moved. Some however were able to defend themselves from these attacks and escape. John McElroy describes one such event in which a young man was attacked by eleven raiders and he managed to escape because he was able to hit one of them hard enough in the head with a spade that it knocked the person down and the others retreated as a result of this (McElroy, p 75). It was common for the raiders to retreat as soon as they realized a form of significant resistance was at hand. The raiders were arguably one of the worst aspects of Andersonville besides the naturally occurring diseases that the prisoners were facing. Unlike the diseases however, the other prisoners had the means to fight against the raiders. The biggest problem with resisting the brutality of the raiders was that they needed the motivation to fight against them and with the horrible conditions they were facing it was difficult to motivate a group of people who were already suffering from countless disease and starvation. However with the already tough situation of being constantly threatened by guards and the consistent run-ins with death from the various other threats coming from the camp, the inmates decided they couldn’t take it anymore. By mid June, the fed up prisoners worked together and brought their complaints to the confederates at which point they formed an inner prison police force to defend against and capture the raiders. Defense against the raiders At first, small groups of prisoners would form together in defense against the raiders. These groups tended to be members of the same platoon or squadron and would set up a system in which if one of them were to be attacked by the raiders, they would scream out a code word and the others would then come to the defense of the person being attacked and scare away the attackers. One example of this is that members of the Plymouth squad would scream out “Plymouth” when being attacked and the other members of the Plymouth would come to their rescue (Goss, pp 150–151). McElroy also describes a similar situation in which people would scream “Raiders!” and the people around them would attack the robbers (McElroy, p 75). To defeat the raiders, the prisoners had to become more organized and have some sort of backing from the Confederates. On June 29, 1864, a prisoner named Dowd was beaten severely by two raiders and had some of his valuables stolen which included a watch and money (Futch, pp 68–70). After Dowd was beaten and robbed, he marched to the front gate to confront the Confederate guards and demand justice. His complaints caught the interest of the head of the prison camp, Captain Henry Wirz. When Wirz heard Dowd’s story, he quickly announced the he would cut off all rations until the raiders were turned in (Futch, p 69). As a result of this there was a police force that was quickly organized and was commonly known as the “Regulators.” The Regulators were not new to the camp but had largely grown in power after Dowd’s case was brought to Captain Wirz. According to McElroy, there was a small band of soldiers who were calling themselves the Regulators and were going around and beating up the raiders who were attacking the other prisoners. After the permission to use a police force was given the inmates, the Regulators started making arrests and holding the people they arrested until they were given a fair trial (McElroy, pp 78–79). According to the diary of John Ransom, Captain Wirz gave the permission to the police force to set up a court and put the offenders on trial. He also gave them full permission to punish the offenders as they deemed necessary, whether it be something as extreme as death by hanging or something smaller like lashings or humiliation (Ransom, p 105-107). Arrest and punishment The arrests took place mostly from June 29 of that year, up until July 10, when the main offenders were tried and hanged (Ransom, p 105). The regulators seemed to be able round up most of the raiders by attacking them at their headquarters, where they put up considerable resistance, but were overthrown by the regulators. Ransom describes the first night of arrests as successful because “thirty or forty of the worst characters in camp had been taken outside,” (Ransom, pp 105–106). Ransom then goes on to explain that it was very difficult to protect the raiders they captured from being lynched rather than being given a fair trial as promised. Estimates of how many raiders were arrested vary from source to source but the number is likely somewhere between 75 and 150 (estimate of 75 comes from Ransom; 150 from McElroy). After the arrest of the raiders, as promised by Captain Wirz, they were put on trial for their crimes committed against the other prisoners. The court was set up much like a typical court would be and included a judge and jury of their peers (Ransom, p 108). Of those who were convicted by the court, many were giving lighter sentences such as “setting in the stocks, strung up by the thumbs, thumb screws, head hanging, etc,” (Ransom, p 108). Another one of the lesser punishments was the running of the gauntlet: a large number of inmates were given clubs, and they formed a gauntlet that some of the convicted raiders were forced to run through (McElroy, pp 85–86). In some cases, the raiders running the gauntlet were able to escape with just a few blows to the head, but a few were beaten so badly that they died as a result of their injuries. Six of the raiders, who were considered the leaders, were given the most severe punishment—death by hanging. The six men that were sentenced to be hanged were John Sarsfield, William Collins, Charles Curtis, Patrick Delaney, A. Munn, and WR Rickson (AKA Teri Sullivan) (Ransom, pp 112– 113). The executions took place on July 11, and were held on a set of gallows which was built that day (Ransom, p 112). On the way to the gallows, Charles Curtis escaped from his ropes and ran away, but was caught by the police and brought back to the gallows. Each man was given time to say some last words before he was hanged: Munn expressed great remorse for his acts, and hoped that God would show him mercy; Collins pleaded for mercy from the crowd and said he was innocent; Sarsfield gave a long speech in which he, too, showed some signs of regret. Delaney and Curtis, however, showed no contrition; Delaney went so far as to say that he would “rather be hanged than live here” in Andersonville (Ransom, pp 112–115). The six men were then hanged, thus ending the reign of the raiders. They are buried separately from the rest of the Andersonville dead. References * Davis, Robert S. Ghosts and Shadows of Andersonville: Essays on The Secret Social Histories of America's Deadliest Prison. Macon, GA: Mercer UP, 2006. * Futch, Oliver L. History of Andersonville Prison. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida P, 1968. * Goss, Warren L. The Soldiers Story of His Captivity at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and Other Rebel Prisons. Boston, MA: I.N. Richardson & CO, 1872. * Kellogg, Robert H. Life and Death in Rebel Prisons. Freeport, New York: Books For Libraries P, 1865 rpt 1971. * McElroy, John. This was Andersonville. Ed. Roy Meredith. New York: McDowell, Obolensky, Inc., 1865 rpt 1957. * Ransom, John L. John Ransom's Andersonville Diary. Middlebury, VT: Paul S Erikson,, 1881 rpt 1963. Category:American Civil War articles needing attention Category:American Civil War prison camps